A Light at the End of the Tunnel

So, cross my fingers hope to die, I THINK I am getting internet in my apartment in a week. I hope I didn't just jinx it by saying that. For those of you who don't know, the whole internet thing has been a general pain in the ass. I originally applied for it a month ago, and was told it would take a month to process my application and get an appointment to get it installed. Sure enough, I got my appointment for almost exactly a month after the original date. They were supposed to come to my apartment on September 10th. Sadly, however, the company called on September 8th, saying things to me in Japanese that I did not understand. I had my supervisor call them on the 9th, and after a long non-English conversation, she got this look of sorrow and embarrassment on her face, and said "Sorry... Sorry... there has been a problem with your application. They will not come to your apartment on Monday." It was like all my dreams had been shattered by a fast-moving truck. Well maybe not that bad, but still pretty disappointing. It turns out the store where I had applied was supposed to send photocopies of my ID documents to the phone company, but they never did, so they sent me a letter asking me to do it, but of course the letter was in Japanese and I had no idea what it said, and my supervisor failed to read it carefully enough to tell me, and yadda yadda yadda long story short is I did not get internet a month after applying, as promised. I spent the weekend intermittantly hanging out with people, which was fun, and sulking about my loss, which was not so fun. Luckily, two friends of mine gave me the English line for a different internet company, and I called them on Monday and was able to apply through them and get an activation date of September 19th, only 8 days from now! Anyway, the moral of the story for anyone who is even thinking about ever living in Japan is DO NOT APPLY FOR YAHOO-BB IN PERSON. EVER. Do it online, or apply over the phone with NTT. That's my two cents of advice, for what it's worth. It'll save you a lot of trouble.

So, now I'm at school, and I just finished up my Tuesday of my second week. Classes are going well, and I'm getting settled into a routine here. Tomorrow I go to the deaf school, to teach my two classes, each with one student only. It's much more relaxed than Takaoka Minami, and I have a lot of down time to read and use the internet. I like my two students also; I help them read and write the alphabet and simple words. Last week I made up some bingo cards and crossword puzzles to make it a little more exciting for them. I'll bring prizes for them tomorrow too; stickers and keychains from home and whatnot. Woo!

Alright some students are here in the staffroom to sell tickets for ice cream for the school festival coming up, so I guess I'd better go buy some (by which I mean I want to catch them before they leave... mmmm ice cream).

Until next time (maybe I'll have my own internet by then??),
Mandy